Media Violence

Its everywhere you look. It surrounds society in ways most people are blind to see. Violence, Sex and Crime. It can be as drastic as your everyday road rage accident, to as little as discipling your child. Ask yourself , as a parent, have you ever hit your child’s hand for them hitting someone else. Do you see what just happened. Now back 10 years ago parents were one of the top influences in a child’s life, now in the present day there is something bigger and more influencing in today’s youth. Media. It’s everywhere, T.V., Radio, Movies and Video games, and violence, sex, drugs and crime are what helps media sell the most. Now that’s a sick to think about, but very true. Youth violence has been a major concern for many decades in America. Majority of the youth form opinions and get influenced by the media. The Media encourages different ways and means to trigger violence among youth.

Media is such a broad topic that we chose to narrow down to what we felt are the most influencing on today’s youth. Television and Video Games. Things that wouldn’t be your number one guess on where your child is learning things, but are two of the highest concerns society has for its children, and the numbers are increasing dramatically.

We can see violence in almost all the media in today’s society but does it really actually effect the way kids think. Video games look more real life and violent than ever. We can see a change in the audience in video gamers in the past ten years starting from Pong and now moving to Grand Theft Auto. Over the holiday season this year lots of teens and even ages as low as seven are asking for the new hot videogames of the year. The top five video games include violence, sex, nudity and the use of foul language. The top five most requested video games of 2005 are- Madden 06, Brothers in Arms, Gun, Matrix Path of Neo, and Grand Theft Auto. Madden 06 is a real life football game were you play as a football team and try to defeat your opponents, but the graphic in this games is so detailed you actually see the sweat coming off the players. This game is rated E for everybody, meaning that there is no regulations on who can play it. Brothers in Arms is a real life army game were you have a team of seven and you have to get them to complete the missions otherwise you die, the graphic on this games again in great detail, how the characters look human and the voices are of a real life person and the actions are like what would occur on the actual battle grounds in war. The rating for this games is M for mature, reason being that the game is really bloody and graphic, so its for a “mature” audience. Gun is a game where you are a cowboy and you have to defeat all of the other bad guys in town. The rating for this game is M for mature, reason being that the games includes sexual encounters, gory graphics and real life person gun shooting. The next game is Matrix the Path of Neo, this game follows the movies of the Matrix. The game is rated E for everyone meaning that there is little or no violence and nothing a teen or child couldn’t handle. The next game is the most controversial game in history right now. The worst of them all. Grand Theft Auto series. These games is the most gory, graphic, and mature game to ever come out. This game, you are a character that steals cars, kills cops, picks up prostitutes and has sex with them, beat up pedestrians on the street and committing robbery. The rating is A for adult meaning that the game is not meant for anyone under the age of 18. Even though these games are rated for the audience, who is going to stop the parents from not getting their child the game they asked for.

If you go back ten years ago you will see a difference in the games that were played by children. The top five games wanted ten years ago were Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong, Super Smash Brothers, Duck Hunt and F-7 racing. These games are all rated lower than T for Teen because the games are not graphic. Even though in Duck Hunt involves using a toy gun to go hunting with, it is nothing like the games of today were when you shoot something or someone and it shows everything that would happen. The games ten years ago were made for a younger audience than of the games today, the people who are making these games today are looking for an audience of eighteen and up, but still younger brothers and friends seem to be getting their hands and are the most interested, in these violent games coming out. Games that are rated A for adult such as Grand Theft Auto have content in them that should only be played by a person eighteen years or older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and graphic sexual content and nudity. Statistics show on the ESRB website that 90 percent of children who play a violent video game are more likely to get into a fight then that of those who do not play the video games.